Weizmann Leaving for U.S. Next Monday; Britain Seeks U.S. Concurrence on Palestine Policy

October 16, 1945

London (Oct. 15)

Dr. Chaim Weismann, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, is planning to leave for the United States next Monday, it was learned here today. He hopes to present the Zionist case to important American officials.

The London Economist says in an editorial that the British Government is delaying the issuance of a fresh statement of policy with regard to Palestine presumably “because of its anxiety for the concurrence of the United States in steps which, for reasons of security of the commonwealth’s lines of communication, cannot go as far as President Truman requested,” The paper calls upon the Government “to pluck up courage” and define the size and the shape of the Jewish National Home it is prepared to sponsor.

Lord Beaverbrook’s newspapers today suggest that the British Government settle the Palestine problem by partitioning the country into separate Jewish and Arab states. It says the original partition plan of Lord Peal should be modified since this plan was “too favorable for Jews.”

This suggestion comes from George Malcolm Thomson, Beaverbrook’s political adviser. While admitting that partition is inconvenient from an economic viewpoint, Thomson stresses that with Europe being “a place of horror” for the Jews, it would be in the present state of opinion of the civilized world – impossible to shut the doors of Palestine to Jewish immigration, or to employ British military force to suppress Jewish revolt.

“A Jewish rising,” Thomson writes, “would be a match in the Middle East which is like tinder. But an Arab rising would be a torch. The risks which might follow the compromise of partition are probably smaller than those of any other policy, and are, therefore, worth running.”